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Topic: Mobility

Anonymous hack San Francisco subway website; Mass user data leaked

Summary: Anonymous -- the hacktivist group -- carried out its promise to attack San Francisco's BART website; retaliating after last weeks' protest.

Zack Whittaker

By for Between the Lines |

After last week's decision to shut down the mobile networks by the San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit System -- BART, in short -- in a bit to disrupt a planned protest, hacktivist group Anonymous made good on its promise to cause its own disruption.

The hacktivist collective hacked the mybart.org website shortly after midday on Sunday, targeting it with a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack -- with a twist.

As CNET reports, though the site was running slower than usual, one notable change was clear. The site had been defaced with the ominous symbol of Anonymous: the Guy Fawkes mask.

The bart.gov website, the BART system's main portal, remains online and unaffected, however.

Along with this, the mybart.org website had also been hacked into, and a vast database of user emails, addresses and phone numbers of website users has been leaked onto code-sharing website, Pastebin.

Other websites, including the California Office of Traffic Safety's 'California Avoid' site has also been defaced.

BART, in a statement, warned of potential disruption to its online services -- responding directly to Anonymous' threats -- noting that the website is "wholly separate from any computer network" from the transport infrastructure itself.

Last week, a protest was planned as a result of the shooting of a man on the subway by BART police. The subway network took to shutting down cell and wireless networks to stations in a bid to block the communications of protesters.

An Anonymous press release, issued this weekend, also pointed towards a "massive Black Fax and Email Bomb" in a bid to cause disruption to BART's communications systems; the same disruption seemingly caused to members of the transit system during the protest.

Warning of further attacks, a message on Twitter by an Anonymous account said: "We're not done yet folks... we're just getting warmed up".

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Topics: Mobility, Telcos

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20 comments
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  • RE: Anonymous hack San Francisco subway website; Mass user data leaked

    Clearly they had to leak all of the user data on mybart. Everyone who uses that site must be punished for their wrong doing!
    hiawatha98
    Reply Vote

  • These low-lifes will be rounded up

    and be put behind bars where they will spend a significant amount of time learning how to perfect pounding sand.
    Dietrich T. Schmitz *Your
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Anonymous hack San Francisco subway website; Mass user data leaked

      @Dietrich T. Schmitz * Your Linux Advocate <br><br>Aaah if only the same could be said of the high lifes that created the GFC. It always seem to be better to rob millions and cause pain to hundreds of thousands rather than put up some graffiti.<br><br>I have no problem putting petty thieves and hackers in jail, if only we could put the rich in jail too.
      tonymcs@...
      Reply Vote

      • So being &quot;rich&quot; is a crime?

        @tonymcs@...

        It is a crime to be ambitious? It is a crime to work hard on something you believe in? It is a crime to work with passion? It is a crime to be inventive? It is a crime to find new paths of exploration?
        Bruizer
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Anonymous hack San Francisco subway website; Mass user data leaked

        @Bruizer@... Fraud and embezzlement are...
        DickCheney777
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Anonymous hack San Francisco subway website; Mass user data leaked

        [i]@Bruizer@... Fraud and embezzlement are...[/i]

        Against who? Who committed "Fraud and embezzlement" as far as the BART system is concerned?

        Or is this just another whiny [b]excuse[/b] to rant...
        ScorpioBlue
        Reply Vote

    • They just hacked the safest OS on the planet

      @Dietrich T. Schmitz * Your Linux Advocate
      Is that why you are so vengeful?
      Yes, mybart.org runs..... Linux!

      Next up: SJVN will fabricate some excuse
      honeymonster
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Anonymous hack San Francisco subway website; Mass user data leaked

        @honeymonster lol
        DickCheney777
        Reply Vote

      • LOL!

        @honeymonster
        :D
        William Farrell
        Reply Vote

  • RE: Anonymous hack San Francisco subway website; Mass user data leaked

    Putting them behind bars is not the solution... they only crave that kind of attention. These bastards are not only ruining livelihoods, they're jeopardizing lives with all their horseplay vis-a-vis military and police networks they compromise, to say nothing of intelligence and diplomatic communiques they leak. And publishing names and phone numbers could be equally life-threatening. I really hope someone just shoots one or two of them, plain and simple.
    Le Jardin
    Reply Vote

    • The problem with Anonymous

      @Le Jardin is that anybody can claim they are them.

      Honestly I think the real Anonymous is a small group of white hat hackers and the criminal cartel area using their name as a shield and as a way to keep law enforcement busy looking the wrong way.
      wackoae
      Reply Vote

    • Message has been deleted.

      DickCheney777
      Reply Vote

  • Great job, Anon...

    Not only did you just justify BART's decision of taking the cell/wifi networks down (under the pretense that the public can't hold a peaceful, responsible protest), you've also justified Congress' recent passing of ISP snooping bill.

    And as you pull more and more stupid stunts like this, already paranoid politicians will only no doubt enact more restrictive legislation.

    It seems you're doing much more to squelch the "right to free speech" eveyone was so worried about last week, than, oh say, BART shutting down a network for a few hours.

    Well done.
    UrNotPayingAttention
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Anonymous hack San Francisco subway website; Mass user data leaked

      @chmod 777 Totally agree. The more hacktivism that occurs the more restrictions will be applied to the web. Eventually all internet traffic will be tracked and logged thanks to idiots like these guys.
      I12BPhil
      Reply Vote

  • RE: Anonymous hack San Francisco subway website; Mass user data leaked

    What's disappointing is that the target was warned this was coming and apparently did nothing to prevent it. ZDNet should do some actual reporting and track down the person responsible for security of this website and ask them what the heck they were thinking not doing any penetration testing as soon as they were in the crosshairs.
    jgm@...
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Anonymous hack San Francisco subway website; Mass user data leaked

      @jgm@... So the blame lies with the victim? That's kinda like "She was asking to be raped, look how she was dressed!".
      I12BPhil
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Anonymous hack San Francisco subway website; Mass user data leaked

        @I12BPhil Of course it's the fault of Anonymous and I don't remotely condone what they did. But if someone said they were going to rob your local bank shortly and the police didn't put any officers in the area and the private security didn't get ramped up at all, wouldn't the bank ensure that someone internal's head would also roll because of that?
        jgm@...
        Reply Vote

  • Pretty sad from a security prospective they didnt address their security...

    sooner. Sucks that everyone's information is out there, but truthfully, if this is the only way to hold people accountable, maybe, just maybe, its what has to be done.

    Lulz
    Been_Done_Before
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Anonymous hack San Francisco subway website; Mass user data leaked

      @Been_Done_Before Accountable to whom?? A group of clowns who pretend to be vigilantes but are really just causing harm to innocent people?
      I12BPhil
      Reply Vote

    • RE: Anonymous hack San Francisco subway website; Mass user data leaked

      @Been_Done_Before

      That's easy for you to say. What if it was [b]your[/b] information? What then?
      ScorpioBlue
      Reply Vote
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